


Five times Leia did her own hair (and one time Han tried)

by Ptolemia



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Humor, five times one time, from ANH through past the end of the OT, just sort of relationship building fluffy nonsense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 08:16:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5490143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ptolemia/pseuds/Ptolemia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leia's hair changes quite frequently.</p><p>Han, being the sharp, intelligent young ruffian he is, has noticed. But how does it work? What do all these strange braids and shapes mean? And what, exactly, is a hair pin? </p><p>Join the smartest man this end of the galaxy as he uncovers the truth behind these mysteries, and also possibly develops something of a crush on a certain Princess.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I watched The Force Awakens and I needed some Han/Leia fluff to soothe the pain (it was great, don't get me wrong, but there were Sad Moments)... and there really isn't a lot of it!! So I decided to write some. The rating is for some events in the later chapters, but it's not likely to go any higher than T.

“How does it do that?” asks Han, nodding vaguely at Leia, who's curled up in the co-pilot seat of the Falcon with a sheaf of documents, knees tucked up into her long white dress.

“Are you talking to me?” she snaps, as though they aren't the only people in the room – Chewie's taking a nap, and Luke is busy... waving his lightsaber and throwing stationary around with his mind, or whatever it is he does in his spare time, in the other room.

He winks. “Sure am, your highness.”

“About? And how much of that ale have you even drunk?”

He snorts. “Not as much as you, clearly.”

“I- pardon? I'll have you know I haven't drunk any of your scummy ale, which, by the way, has _bits_ floating in it, and-”

“Sounds like something that somebody who just drank a load of my ale would say.”

She glares. “I haven't touched that horrid filth. And I'm serious, are you even safe to fly this thing in your present state? I mean, I suppose it's always going to be a pile of junk, and you're still a reckless scoundrel when you're sober, but... your eyes are _blurry_ , Han.”

“Yeah, well,” he says, sticking his feet up on the console and waving an accusing finger at a point about a foot right of Leia's head, “Your whole face is blurry. Now who's drunk?”

“Urgh! Oh, honestly, I give up. I'm going to go and... and sit in another room. Try not to get us all killed – if you're capable of that.”

 

He calls out after her as she makes to storm out of the cockpit, “Hey, lady, you never answered my question.”

She hesitates on the threshold, gaze stormy. “What question?”

“How does it do that?”

“How does _what_ do that?” She lets out a grumpy little huff of air, “Oh, just stop wasting my time and focus on driving, won't you?”

“Your hair,” says Han, “Look, it's been bothering me, and I can't focus on steering if I don't have answers, Princess, that's just the facts. How does your hair do the...” he trails off, and makes vague swirly gestures at his head.

She scowls at him. “Pins, dumbo. Now fly the damn ship!”

 

And with that, she's gone. Han gazes after her. “Huh,” he says, and then after a moment, very quietly, “... looks nice.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

He asks her about the hair again later, much later – they're on Cloud City, before it all goes spectacularly wrong (Han has a knack for making things go spectacularly wrong, he's noticed that), and she's wearing a dress.

“Nice dress,” he says.

She frowns, gazing out of the window. “It's more of a tunic, really,” she says, sounding distracted, scanning the horizon as though she's looking for something, “I'd feel strange about the trousers otherwise, I think.”

Han makes a vague noise of confusion. “Well, then your... your hair looks nice. Or is that something else, too?”

“No, it's hair. How could it be anything other than hair, Han?”

He shrugs. “Well, it looks different all the time. For all I know, you're actually bald and it's just a very advanced hologram designed to _look_ like hair.”

She glares at him.

“What?! It could be.”

“Well,” she says, primly, managing to look down at him on some level, even though she's a good foot shorter than he is, “It isn't.”

“Are you sure?” he says, leaning up against the wall in a manner he hopes makes him look fetching, but not like he's trying too hard to be fetching. Casual, but attractive.

“Am I sure that I'm _not bald_?” she says, and her voice slides menacingly along the knife-edge between amused and furious.

Han grins, and rests his hand on her waist for a moment before gently tugging her toward him. “Hey,” he says, “I'd still like you even if you were.”

“Well, I'm flattered,” she says, and she's trying to sound scathing but she's also fighting back a grin, with only limited success, “You're a real charmer, aren't you?”

“I've been told as muc-” he begins, but then Leia leans up on tiptoes and kisses his cheek, and his brain goes curiously blank for a second.

 

By the time his brain comes back online she's fluttered away to the far side of the room, and is frowning out of the window again, glaring suspiciously at passing ships.

“Then how does it do that?” he asks.

“What?”

“Your hair.”

She blinks, confused. “I really don't know what you-”

“It does different things!”

“Yes.”

“How?”

Leia turns, fixing him with one of her inscrutable stares. “With pins, Han. Haven't we had this conversation before?”

“Uh... I don't think I remember it.”

“You were drunk.”

“Oh, right - and you were being obnoxious.”

“So you do remember!”

“No, just basing that guess on your general attitude, your worship.”

Leia purses her lips. “Hilarious.”

He grins. “See? Point proved.”

She rolls her eyes, turning back to the window.

 

“Aren't pins sharp, though?” he says, coming to stand beside her.

“Not those sort of pins, idiot.”

“There are other sorts?”

She rolls her eyes again, but as she does she reaches up behind her head and plucks a long hairpin out of the base of her braid, holding it out to Han to inspect.

“Huh,” he says. “What, you just stick those in and it changes shape?”

Leia pats his arm condescendingly. “Something like that. Now, would you go and check what's going on for me? See if you can find Lando. There's something about all this that I don't quite like.”

He sighs. “Really? C'mon, you worry too much.”

“And you refuse to do what I say too much.”

“I don't have to do anything you say.”

Leia strokes his cheek. “No, but I'd like you to.”

“I... fine, fine,” mutters Han. And then, because he has a bad reputation to maintain, he pulls his best 'I totally don't have to do what you tell me' face, and bows condescendingly. “I shall be back presently, your highness,” he says.

 


	3. Chapter 3

They sit on the floor in one of the Falcon's smaller rooms on the flight back from Jabba’s place, backs to the wall, staring out of the viewport in silence. Han can’t see the stars, yet, but he kinda feels like Leia wouldn’t want him looking her way right now, so he keeps his eyes front and his mouth closed. The silence is… oppressive. Leia’s shaking, slightly, in the corner of his vision – it might be the cold, he reasons. It might be his eyes, actually, since they’re still blurry from the carbonite.

“I just don’t trust him with my ship,” he mumbles, eventually, out of a desperate desire to say _something_ , anything to break the weight of the silence. “I mean,” he continues, hating how loud his voice sounds against the distant hum of the engines and Leia’s slightly elevated breathing, “I like the kid. I do. And I’m sure Chewie wouldn’t let him do anything too crazy, but… well. Y’know.”

“Hmm,” says Leia. She doesn’t look round, just keeps staring out the viewport, arms wrapped around her legs, chin on her knees, hunched over and covering as much of herself as she can in that stupid… thing, whatever it is, that she’s wearing. Han hates it. He’s never had strong opinions on clothes before, but this is different; it’s upsetting Leia and he _hates_ it.

“I mean, maybe he’s not even flying it,” he continues, hoping to draw her into at least some kind of conversation to take her mind off things; “Maybe Lando’s piloting. Would figure, really, since it was his ship before I, uh, borrowed it. Stole it, really. Only, I gotta say, I’m not all that sure I trust Lando with the old girl, either.” He sighs. “I’m heading back in to the cockpit soon as I get my vision back properly, I’m tellin’ you.”

Leia doesn’t even respond to that. She just pulls her legs a big closer to her chest and shivers, again.

Han gulps. “Hey, uh, you… you look a little-”

That gets her attention. Her head snaps round to face him, and she hisses, “If you think for one second that I want to hear _anything_ about how I look right now, hotshot, then you’ve got another-”

“… cold,” mumbles Han, heart in his throat, “You look cold, I thought- I wasn’t- I mean. Wondered if you wanted my jacket, maybe. Uh.”

 

Leia’s eyes dim a little, fury dying back. She shrugs, stiffly. “Well, if you don’t want it…”

Han takes the jacket off and hands it to her without a word.

She takes it. “Han?”

“Yeah?”

“I… thank you.”

“Hey, ‘s fine. Kinda warm in here anyway with all the,” he gestures, vaguely, not really sure where that was going. “Uh, so, are you feeling-”

“I don’t need to be babied, Solo.”

“Alright Princess, cool it. Just wanted to know if you-”

“I’m fine.”

Han hesitates. They don’t do ‘feelings’. Well. Not often. But he thinks this might be one time that snapping back at her isn’t really an option, so he steels himself, and begins, “Sure, only-”

Leia turns on him, spitting fire. “Alright, listen up, lazerbrain. I watched my planet _burn_. Everyone I ever knew. Every place I ever went as a kid, every tree and every rock and every- all of it. Gone. And I didn’t cry – not _once_ , Han, not a single time. You think a- that a stupid- that a piece of _clothing_ is going to have me bawling like- I’m fine. I’m feeling great, actually. Stop asking, won’t you? I don’t want you to sit there and pity me and ask if I’m alright like I’m some kind of- like I need to be-” Leia makes a loud sniffling noise, “And it’s only a stupid bikini, anyway, and it’s only people looking and I- and it’s over, anyway, isn’t it so I don’t know why I- why I-”

 

Han stares at his feet, and pretends not to notice Leia blowing her nose on the edge of his jacket, mopping at tears with her brow wrinkled up like she’s mad at herself for feeling anything about it at all.

“Hey,” he says, after a moment, “D’you want my pants?”

“What?”

“Well, then we’ll both look dumb. And you’re right. It’s just clothes.”

Leia splutters out a weak half-giggle. It’s the best sound Han’s ever heard. He pulls his pants off and she shuffles into them; they come down over her feet stupidly far, which draws a proper laugh, even if it’s a quiet one, and Han grins at her. She catches his eye for half a second, and then her lip trembles again and she turns away. “I just want to take this stupid thing off,” she growls, “I just want to- to not be wearing it.”

“Uh, I can turn my back and- or I can go into the other room if you-”

She shakes her head, quivering with a kind of icy humiliated pride, “No, it’s bolted on. There was a key, only… well, I suppose that it’s probably in the bottom of the Sarlacc pit or something, now.”

“Oh. That’s. Hmm.”

She snorts. “Yeah.”

“Well, Lando’s got a whole buncha lock picks which should-“

“I know,” she says, removing her earrings and throwing them onto the floor with barely restrained fury, “I know. But _I_ want to be able to take it off. I want to do it myself.”

She still has half a chain attached to her throat, Han realises. He wants to hug her, but he’s not sure how to ask, or if she’d even want him to. “Lando’s real good with a lockpick,” he says, carefully, “And it’s not all that easy to learn. You might have to let him- look, he won’t be funny about it. I promise.”

 

Leia sighs, scrubbing lipstick off her mouth with the corner of Han’s jacket. “I know. I just don’t like it.”

“Yeah,” says Han, because there’s not a lot of anything else to say. “Yeah.”

“Hey,” says Leia, after a moment, “Would you do me a favour and go fetch me a mirror? I- well, it’s stupid, really, but I didn’t put my hair up like this. I want to- I don’t know. Take to down or something. I think I do, anyway.”

“Sure. You want me to get Lando? He probably has some lockpicks on him. Actually, come to think of it, I’ve got some in a toolkit somewhere…”

“Well, I’d rather you did it, if you can. I mean, Lando's not so bad but... I'd just rather you did it. If it's all the same to you.”

Han shrugs. “I can try. Might take a while, though. It’s been ages since I actually had to pick a lock – everywhere’s gone digital. It’s not quite the same, getting a droid to do all the hard work for you.”

Leia smiles. “I would have thought you’d enjoy the opportunity to be lazy.”

“I’m not saying I don’t,” retorts Han, as he shuffles out of the room, suddenly very aware that the lockpicks are probably in the cockpit and he’s not wearing an awful lot, “I’m just saying it’s _different_ , your Worship.”

 

When he comes back, Leia seems to be in better spirits, and goes about slowly unwinding the… whatever the hell is going on with her hair, while Han locates the first lock. He manages to break three picks in about a minute. He really is out of practice, and it's not helped by the face that he's still blinking away a vague blur from his vision.

After the fifth pick breaks, he rests back on his haunches and sighs. “I don’t know if this is gonna work. The picks are all kinda rusty, anyway. Maybe if I got out a saw…”

“No,” says Leia, bluntly. “Absolutely not.” Han never thought he’d seen the day he’d be glad to be snapped at, but Leia sounds so much more like her old self that he can’t help but smile a little.

“Well, if you’ve got a better idea, Princess…”

She reaches into her hair, and hands him something.

“The hell is this?” he grunts.

She rolls her eyes. “Hairpin.”

“You… will that work?”

She shrugs. “Well, how should I know? You’re the criminal, Han.”

“And you’re the- the-”

“What?”

“The… hair… lady…” he finishes, lamely.

Leia raises an eyebrow. “Just try it, won’t you? It _might_ work.”

 

And it does. Leia, to her credit, doesn’t say ‘I told you so’ – she just grins, smugly, and asks Han if he wouldn’t mind fetching her some of her own clothes, please. And, with a little less grumbling than usual, he does.


End file.
